I might have to sub-title this as 'Are you in love with Iran?'.
Last saturday I paid for the great privilege of attending an iranian new year ball, at some big fancy hotel in Kensington. There is far too much money floating about among the iranian community, it seems. Sadly, it seems that all the funding in the world cannot make a good meal. The decision to have a buffet seems a little out of place. The venue clearly seemed set up, and staffed for normal table service, but hey-ho, such is life. Apparently. I cannot for the life of me remember names of anything, so please forgive me for using the word 'thing' as frequently as I intend to.
The first course of bread and squishy things to dunk it in was underwhelming. They offered 2 different types of humous (or at least 2 large bowls dressed slightly differently), which were both unspeakably bland, pasty, almost unpleasant stodge. This appeared to be the general standard of the first course: underseasoned, dry and disappointing. There were, however a couple of dishes which were quite tasty. There is a smoky aubergine thing, which is always my favourite, and a sort of meaty, teardrop-shaped thing which looked like a fossilised turd, but tasted pretty decent.
The former of these was much much better, to the point of near-perfection last night at Little Persia in Bayswater; an intoxicating, soft, quite oily reddish mush; an intensely smoky, slightly sweet, slightly garlicy, very moreish pleasure. Whatever it's called, I recommend it!
This is trumped only by a dish I had at Ken Lo's Memories of China earlier in the week: spiced baby aubergines. These were, unsurprisingly delicious. The balance of their heavy texture with the uplifting aromatics and small amount of heat was a total joy. Where the iranian dish was fairly brutal, this was rather subtler, and one i would recommend more, although it is much more expensive.
